Controversy’s favourite child Donald Trump

Finally bows down to honour US Senator John McCain

Donald Trump on Monday has finally bowed down to honour late John McCain, while ordering to lower flags across the country to half-staff, as the late senator fired a parting shot at the president in a farewell message to the nation.

The change in Trump’s conduct reflected after he found himself surrounded with controversy over his rather noticeable absence to pay tribute to McCain. The former US Senator died Saturday at 81 after battling the fatal brain cancer for a long time.

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The veterans’ groups launched appeals for a more fitting salute to McCain, after which a Navy veteran who was imprisoned for more than five years in Vietnam, the Republican leader — who had no love lost for the Arizona senator, also blinked.

While ordering the flag atop the White House and elsewhere to fly at half-staff until McCain’s burial on Sunday, Trump in a statement said,

“Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country.”

The White House flag was lowered after McCain’s death on Saturday, however, it was once again at the top of the flagpole on Monday morning.

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Trump’s initial reservation about McCain highlighted the isolation of the US leader and further fuelled criticism that the former is incapable of uniting a divided nation together, even in the mourning of a man widely seen as an American hero and a political icon.

In Phoenix, Rick Davis, the two-time presidential candidate’s former campaign manager, confirmed that Trump would not be attending the funeral, where a week of tributes to McCain was soon to get underway.

As per a report from syndicate feed by NDTV, the president himself affirmed that Vice President Mike Pence would speak at a ceremony honoring McCain at the US Capitol on Friday.

White House chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Advisor John Bolton would represent the administration at his services, he added.

McCain served as a senator from Arizona for more than 30 years, however, clashed with Trump repeatedly despite both being Republicans. The President initially paid negligible tribute to the senator after his death.